82R8909 BPG-F
By: Isaac, et al. H.C.R. No. 81
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution places clear limits on the power of the federal
government, but officials in Washington, D.C., have grown ever
bolder in usurping powers rightly belonging to the states,
particularly regarding the regulation of hazardous waste, water,
and clean air and the regulation of the production, exploration,
drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products; and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people"; the powers reserved to the State of
Texas and its citizens are those powers as they were understood in
1845, when Texas was admitted to statehood, excluding amendments;
and
WHEREAS, Similarly, the Ninth Amendment to the constitution
prohibits the federal government from violating or infringing on
rights not specifically enumerated in the constitution and reserves
to the people of Texas certain rights as they were understood at the
time that Texas was admitted to statehood, excluding amendments;
the guarantee of those rights is a matter of contract between the
people and the State of Texas and the United States as of the time
that the compact with the United States was agreed on and adopted by
Texas and the United States; and
WHEREAS, In the U.S. Constitution, the power to regulate
interstate commerce is delegated to the federal government; at the
time of our nation's founding, this power related to the buying and
selling of products made by others, and sometimes land, as well as
associated finance and financial instruments, and navigation and
other carriage, across state jurisdictional lines; this interstate
regulation of "commerce" did not include regulation of agriculture,
manufacturing, mining, malum in se crimes, or land use; neither did
it include activities that merely "substantially affected"
commerce; and
WHEREAS, The nation's founders had no intention of giving the
federal government authority to regulate intrastate commerce, and
no such power is delegated to the federal government in the
constitution; therefore, under the Tenth Amendment, the regulation
of the environment in the State of Texas is delegated to the State
of Texas, as is the regulation of production, exploration,
drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products that
originate and remain inside the State of Texas, and which have not
been proven and adjudicated by the Texas or federal courts to
specifically be causing, or to have caused, quantifiable harm to
any persons or places beyond the borders of Texas; now, therefore,
be it
RESOLVED, That the 82nd Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby express its opposition to federal regulation of hazardous
waste, water, and clean air and of the production, exploration,
drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products in the State
of Texas; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the 82nd Texas Legislature finds that each
state environmental agency and each state agency with limited
environmental responsibilities, within its areas of environmental
jurisdiction, should to the extent deemed necessary cooperate with
federal environmental agencies in the regulation of hazardous
waste, clean air, and water and of the production, exploration,
drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products, but should
not be required to enforce federal laws or regulations relating to
such environmental regulation; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.